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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Why there are no more Epic Archetypes in City of Heroes
My weekend plans went cross-eyed, as they often do, but as a result I found myself looking through some old notes for future columns on City of Heroes. There were a lot of notes I took early on when I was first writing columns, some of which I wound up using and some of which wound up being discarded, but one particular idea jumped out at me: a column about potential future Epic Archetypes. Specifically, I was looking back over and noting how a lot of the archetypes I listed wouldn't actually work at all. I've gone on record as having been a big fan of EATs right from the beginning, as they're meant to be classes that break up the regular structure of the game's classes. That strikes me as laudable. But even disregarding the technical aspects of the epics that makes them more complex to develop and balance, I think there are some noteworthy basic problems with them on a conceptual level. We may very well never get another one just because the game has been structured to make them almost a design mistake that's never been corrected.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Does whatever a spider can (VEAT levels 20-50)
Welcome back to our conclusion of A Mild-Mannered Reporter's guide to spiders! After last week's long discussion of the various builds possible for the villainous epic archetypes, we're back to blast through to the end of the unique leveling missions. And it's a pretty interesting string, although like much content in City of Heroes it starts to slow down a bit as you get higher in levels. But it also has the nice story interplay of the best content available on the Rogue Isles, the constant back-and-forth as untrustworthy people stab each other in the back. For players or readers coming in late, we left off at the conclusion of the level 20 arc, where you delivered the Eye of Chronos to Fortunata Hamilton. She tells you that the process of seeing whether or not you truly are a Destined One will take time... which is true if you turn the mission in before level 20, but otherwise it apparently takes two seconds. Of course, there's a good reason for that.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Spiders on the wall (VEAT levels 1-20)
I've been talking about it more often than not these days whenever I mention City of Heroes, but in case it wasn't transparently obvious: I like spiders. Not actual spiders, mind you -- those generally merit a kill-on-sight order from me -- but the epic archetypes that villains get? Boy, I can't get enough of those. They're like sliced awesome, complete with sweet armor for the soldier side of things and buttcapes for the widow ladies. (And creepily form-fitting armor for the male widows... y'know, let's just pretend that we didn't go down that road.) What's struck me as odd, however, is that there's relatively little written up about partaking in the sheer joy of being a faceless cog in Arachnos who decided to strike out and hit the big time. With more players than ever able to access the archetypes, and more players still when Going Rogue goes live, now seems as good a time as any to take a hard look at our eight-legged friends and jackbooted oppressors. Today, we're going to go over the basics of starting a new Soldier or Widow, including powersets and the early missions.
Villain Epics mere lackeys? Not likely
When the City of Villains Devs first mentioned that the new Villain Epic Archetypes were going to be Soldiers of Arachnos, some players were apprehensive. They didn't see how a mere rank-and-file member of a villainous organization was going to be any fun to play. Arachnos is a stratified, militaristic outfit, and people make villains in order to break the rules, right? So what's the fun in being a uniformed lackey?As it turns out, the Devs have tackled this head-on in the Epic Villain AT story arc. The key point is that all player villains in CoV so far have been special, because they're Destined Ones, potentially fated to overcome all other villains in a war for ultimate supremacy.
VEAT Video Analysis - a villain's perspective
We, the Chosen Ones within the ranks of Arachnos, have managed to smuggle out a copy of a debriefing video Longbow is providing to "heroes". Realistically, it wasn't that difficult: the briefing was held by heroes, and they apparently didn't realize that an open meeting room in the Rikti War Zone -- an area where heroes and villains both share space, hello? -- is likely not the best place to discuss "secret" information. I had the somewhat dubious pleasure of dropping into shadow to listen to Major Tasker advise the cannon fodder horde of strong and valiant warriors that he was "here to brief you on the capabilities of your sworn enemies, the soldiers of Arachnos." As he notes, "we expect large numbers of new Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows in the coming weeks." Doesn't it make your skin tingle with antici ... pation?I suppose to be fair to Longbow -- although who really wants to be? -- the intel they were able to gather is reasonably solid. I've been able to verify the whispers I heard ... whispers that said Chosen Ones who reach a high enough Threat Level are able to induct new members into the fold as either Wolf Spiders or Blood Widows. Luckily for us, Lord Recluse has been satisfied enough with the Chosen Ones that the Spider class is no longer limited to males, and the Widow class is now open to them. Fraternization's not a problem, from what I understand: just be aware that the rumors of Widows eating their mates isn't limited solely to the animal kingdom. %Gallery-20749%
First Glimpse of the Villain Epics
Issue 12 Beta for CoX is currently in Friends and Family stage and closed to anyone else, but bugs do happen, and one forum poster has accidentally accessed the Villain Epic Archetypes. He's generously taken plenty of screenshots and thus given us the first real taste of how the VEATs will work. NCSoft haven't objected to his sharing the information with us, but have reminded us that VEATs are still being worked on. So, please remember that this isn't final.
